AIG WTF?

I know if AIG goes out of business in one way or another (bankruptcy, getting burned to the ground by rioters, etc) – there will be tremendous repercussions for the US and possibly world economy. But seriously, their stock market cap is $1.24 billion dollars (and this is after today’s jump in price after it was announced that they’re getting another $30 billion in Government aid). I must be missing something about the structure of AIG’s stock – this market cap number has got to be missing a big chunk of whatever it is that makes up AIG’s mass. I mean, their total loss for 2009 is somewhere in the ballpark of $90 billion dollars. Even at their 52 week high of $51.47 a share – their market cap is somewhere in the ballpark of $138 billion. And guess what, so far the government aid package has totalled $150 billion to them.

I know, I know – a trillion dollars in assets and almost that much in liabilities. A big number minus another big number plus a stream of drops in the bucket in government aid equals a really bizzare stock valuation. Thats why I titled this one AIG WTF!

Astronomers – if you’re tired of looking for dark matter in space, take a look over at AIG – they’ve got something that apparently has mass but cannot be seen or detected in any way whatsoever. Bizzare, this is one of the reasons I am glad I’m an engineer. Sometimes finance is less intuitive than quantum physics.

This entry was posted
on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 6:31 pm and is filed under Economy.
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